In 2007, the ten most commonly diagnosed cancers among men in the United States included cancers of the prostate, lung, colon, rectum, and bladder; melanomas of the skin; non-Hodgkins lymphoma; kidney cancer, mouth and throat cancer, leukemia, and pancreatic cancer. In women, the most common cancers were reported as breast, lung and colon cancer. Overall, 758,587 men were told they had cancer and 292,853 men died from cancer in the U.S. in 2007. In women there has been a prevalence of 6,451,737 advanced cases reported by SEER at CDC. In general there were 11,957,599 advanced cancer cases in the US reported in 2010 by CDC and the incidence has been almost unchanged over the previous 8 years (482,000 cases in 2000 versus 456,000 cases in 2008). There has been an annual percentage change of only (−0.6) between years 1999 to 2008 in cancer incidence. Statistics show that deaths caused by advanced cancers from all types have not significantly changed since a decade ago, and in some cases, such as lung cancer with increased incidence since 1930, the death rate has remained rising, especially among women. As more and more chemotherapy agents are introduced to the market for advanced stages of disease, the patient survival rates have remained essentially unchanged. Moreover, the potential toxicity of many chemotherapeutic agents can be a devastating factor both for the clinician and the patient. Therefore the need for non-toxic therapies, used either alone or in combination with traditional chemotherapy, is evident.
Besides chemotherapy agents, many natural and several synthetic medications have been separately assessed to target cancer in different trials. Dichloroacetic acid (DCA), 3 Bromopyruvate (3BP), Sodium phenyl butyrate, and some natural antioxidants such as quercetin as a strong epigenetic modifier and an antioxidant have been used separately in research, and several clinical trials have shown promise in treating patients with advanced cancer either to achieve a response or increase the quality of life. Many of such treatments have been examined and combined with traditional chemotherapies and prove to function as chemosensitizing and radiosensitizing agents increasing their potential effect (1), (2), (3), (13), (46).